Philosophia
Every teacher I know desperately wants their students to love learning. It’s easy to get bogged down in standards and curriculum and technology, forgetting our underlying intention that we want our students to be lifelong learners. This term has lost a lot of appeal to me over the years because of overuse; it has become trite. 15 years ago, every conference I attended discussed, ad nauseam, instilling a lifelong love of reading or writing or mathematics or any other subject. Once educational technology became fashionable, the conversations shifted to getting students to be lifelong coders or makers. Literacy experts espoused lifelong literacy practices that would help students become lifelong readers. Mathematics pedagogy touted the importance of getting students to see themselves as mathematicians, instead of kids who “don’t do math” or hate math.
Teachers work hard to provide students with their best pedagogical practices in positive learning environments. There are no shortcuts in the classroom. Sure, lots of edtech tools claim to make learning easier or more efficient, but students need time to wrestle with complex content. Technology may present academic content in a user-friendly way, but in the end, tools do not replace good teachers and time. Thinking takes time. Every year, you send off your students and hope they grow into upstanding members of society who can think critically and independently.
Unfortunately, our public education system has heavily invested in standardized curricula and resources in order to stanch pandemic learning loss. The pandemic did not create learning loss; the years of remote learning and social distancing exacerbated an already present problem: public schools don’t promote deep learning.
The average Elementary-aged student will spend six years being introduced to unfamiliar concepts that spiral throughout their academic career. This recursive philosophy has merit, but due to the amount of mandated concepts that are presented to students, teachers do not have the time to encourage students to think deeply about what they are learning. If a student doesn’t fully understand something before they leave the classroom, the hope is that next year’s curriculum will catch them up. The problem is that it never does and students continue to either fall further behind or at best, leave school with shallow understandings of various academic concepts and rudimentary academic skills.
I believe this is why so many students (and teachers) do not love school. According to Dr. Zina Hitz in her book, Lost in Thought: the Hidden Pleasure of an Intellectual Life, Augustine of Hippo says that “our ability to love one another depends on our capacity to learn from one another” (p. 111). How can we learn from one another if we are so quickly moving from concept to concept, lesson to lesson, unit to unit, grade level to grade level?
If public education had a more humanistic foundation, academic learning would foster authentic connections. Teachers and students would share their intellectualism toward the common goal of promoting a shared intellectual life, not just passing a test.
What would it look like to have students think deeply? What type of learning experience would be conducive to an intellectual life? How might teachers and students think together in search of answers to big questions? How might I integrate wonder into my classroom?
These are questions I reflected on after reading Hitz’s book. I want my students to think deeply in my classroom. Socrates had his Thinkery; Plato created the Academy; Aristotle had the Lyceum; Benjamin Franklin founded the Junto Club. All of these were designed to encourage collective understanding through contemplation and dialogue. Dr. Hitz states, “understanding, like the sight of something beautiful or fascinating, calls out to be shared” (p. 112).
I want my students to delight in learning again. I want my students to understand complex topics in a way that enhances their lives, not just increases their test scores. I want my students to have a love of wisdom.
The Thinkatorium
Each week, I will present an intellectual question for students to ponder. By examining and sitting with videos and selected philosophical readings, I hope to model for my students that understanding takes time and patience.
On Thursday, I will give students time to synthesize their thoughts before we discuss (not debate) as a class. My goal is not to have students opinionize their thoughts, but to think hard and deeply about a particular concept. I want us to collectively unite in search of answers to hard questions. What is truth? What is the meaning of life? What is freedom? What is love? Can people change? What are dreams?
This philosophical learning experience will be open-ended enough to permit creativity and surprises and hopefully lead to classroom discussions that can’t be predicted.
I don’t know if this will work. I don’t presume to magically turn my fifth graders into mini philosophers that annoy their parents at the dinner table. Helping ten-year olds to understand and connect with Ptahhotep, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Alain LeRoy Locke, Nietzsche, Locke, Gandhi, Kant, Hobbes, W.E.B. Du Bois, Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, bell hooks, Angela Davis, etc… will be very challenging. However, my goal is to give students practice with sitting in the discomfort of not knowing the answer to something. Even if my students do not fully understand Plato’s Republic, hopefully they will leave the experience as better human beings.
I’ll keep you posted on how this learning experience goes. Have a great week!
—Adrian
Resources
Continuing the Conversation - St. John's College
This is an interesting podcast where academics discuss deep questions.
I subscribe to
’s Substack and he always has insightful things to say. I love this particular post, which led me down James Baldwin and Studs Terkel rabbit hole.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
A great place to start when looking at teaching students how to philosophize.
This is my favorite resource! I’ve loved Crash Course since it started. Check out the trailer.
I like using Socratic Seminar Circles in the classroom. A good handful of students can get a lot more profound while talking compared to writing, so it is always good to hear those voices. I was actually thinking about scrapping the Socratic Seminar this unit and your post convinced me not too :)